Talking Dateline: Heartless

Hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Talking Dateline. Today, I'm joined by Josh Mankiewicz to discuss his episode, which is called Heartless. Interesting title for this one. It's about the disappearance of a woman in rural Oklahoma, the armchair detectives that brought attention to her case, and the killer who was too close to home. But before we get into all of that, if you haven't listened to the episode yet, you can find it right below this one or stream it right now on Peacock, and then come back and we'll talk. We'll have more from Josh's interview with Talena's killer, and later your questions from social media. All right, let's talk Dateline. So, this was an interesting way to get into a story, Josh Mankiewicz. You got it through our digital team when you were doing the Missing in America? Yes, I got a call. Several years ago when Talena was missing before she'd been found by a friend of mine who knew Talena, I think, through work. And she said, this woman I know is suddenly missing and nobody can find her. And, you know, maybe this is something that you guys could work on. So, I sent it to Veronica, who's in our Dateline episode, who runs the Missing in America franchise for us. And so, we did one of the first stories on that case. We were sort of one of the first places where Talena's case got some national play. Now, I'll be the first to admit, I don't think that our Missing in America thing did anything except generate a lot of tips. I do not think it played any role in solving the case. But it did sort of begin to get the case out there. Was that what prompted the armchair detectives on social media to get involved? Well, it's impossible to say sort of what prompts. I mean, what got everybody interested in the Karen Reed case? What got everybody interested in the Lindsay Clancy case? There's a sort of a spot or a sort of a match strikes on the internet, and suddenly there's this wildfire of interest. And there was some of that in the case of Talena Galloway. You know, people who had never heard her name before, didn't know who she was, had never been to Oklahoma, suddenly were super invested in finding out where she was. And we sort of talked to one of the leaders of that group, Jess. Yeah. It's very interesting about these kinds of groups that form, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes intentionally. The police occasionally like to work with them. These police officers didn't seem necessarily all that enthusiastic. They were sort of ahead of them most of the time, I think. It's hard to say. I mean, you know, obviously, I wasn't privy to every conversation or any of the conversations between the sort of the amateur sleuths and the sheriff's investigators who were working this case. Those investigators, the sheriff's department, they solved it. They got to the bottom of it. And, you know, were they helped along at some point by the amateur sleuths? Maybe. But this is certainly mostly almost all their work. You know, the problem, as they say in this episode, is that when you get all these tips from elsewhere, generated by people on the internet who unquestionably sort of, you know, mean well, and in some cases come up with legitimate, interesting, worthy to explore avenues of investigation, that can slow things down, particularly if, as an investigator, you already think you know what's going on. What's going on. But those tips can't be discounted. I mean, our Missing in America story generated a tip that Talena had been seen here in the distant suburbs of Los Angeles. Well, not true, but they have to check it out. And so I think investigators feel like that kind of thing slows them down. But there's no question that, like, sometimes it leads to something. I think it definitely slows them down in many cases. In many cases. I've only encountered one, which was a case where the person wasn't missing. She was already dead. And they're trying to figure out who she was. It was a Jane Doe case. And in that case, the detectives actively sought out and were happy to accept the help of this online group of sleuths. And it made a big difference. But again, if somebody is missing, they're trying to solve a murder. It's a different situation. Well, the one I always come back to is the Chris Lambert, who was a, you know, podcaster, not an investigator, didn't know the Smart family, never investigated, you know, crimes or anything like that, sort of took it upon himself to begin investigating this and then generated a tremendous amount of information that kind of helped kick start the case. And there's other cases around the country where sort of amateur sleuths or podcasters, you know, made a big deal. And there's also cases in which amateur sleuths, you know, sort of got in the way. But generally, law enforcement, happy to have tips. I think there's a point at which they sort of feel like, you know, hey, enough, stay in your lane. It's also a change from the way it was, you know, when I started, certainly, which was about seven eons ago, but where the officers did not want anybody interfering. They didn't want anybody even talking to them about it. They're doing their own investigation and stay out of it, please. Cops were working with oil lamps, weren't they? I think that's about right. Driving around in their horseless carriages. I don't think people trying to solve crimes at home, whether they're disappearances or murders, I don't think that's going away. I think the internet makes that much more possible than it was just a few years ago. It makes it inevitable. And it can create a community of sort of like-minded people who want to get to the bottom of it, which is exactly what happened in this case. And Jess did a tremendous amount of work. And, you know, I mean, at one point, investigators told her to sort of slow down because Corey, their suspect, was reading the Where's Talena, Justice for Talena webpage and thinking, I'm under suspicion, which from those people, she absolutely was. I think the cops wanted her to feel like, no, no, you're not under suspicion. You're, you're, it's still safe to talk with us. Right. And so they sort of asked Jess to, like, can you, can you just hold down a little bit? And the cops really clearly wanted to keep Corey talking because every time they spoke with her, they were, the sheriff's investigators were learning a little bit more. Her past is pretty fascinating. What kind of character emerged in your mind from that? That investigation of her past? Corey's past, kind of murky. Not, not a whole lot known in detail about sort of where she came from and, and what led to that. But, but you spoke to her ex-husband and his story, the story he told police too about what they should be looking for was telling, that's for sure. That's, you know, that's not a story you tell somebody sort of on the spur of the moment. I mean, Alec, her ex-husband calls police and when he hears Talena is missing and he's like, look, a couple of things. One, you're not looking for a live person or a body, you're looking for body parts. And second, you're looking for ricin, which is this, I mean, I don't know if exotic is the right word for it, but highly unusual out of the mainstream poison that, that is used in, you know, like by terrorists and in assassinations and stuff. And his story is Corey was making ricin when they lived together. In Wisconsin. And she told him that she broke into the neighbor's house and spread ricin to kill them. And she said, I'm making ricin to deal with our enemies. She said, that's how he quotes her. Now, the interesting thing about this is that the people living next door to Corey and Alec in Wisconsin hardly meet the standard of being an enemy. I mean, I'm not sure they actually had any dispute with them. Corey may have believed that they were the source of the township sort of saying, you have too many animals, you have to do something about them. You know, you're making a lot of noise and they smell bad and neighbors are complaining. But the Ziegler's who I spoke with at length, they say, no, that, that wasn't us. That was one of the other neighbors who made that. Everybody was upset about that. This really is killing an ant with a cannon. I mean, Ricin, ricin is a pretty strong response. Yeah. You get in a, you get in a pretty small dispute with your neighbors and the next thing you know, you're spreading a poison that's used, you know, to assassinate foreign leaders and things. Um, that's, uh, that's kind of crazy. Now, by now, six years have passed. It's pretty clear the Ziegler's didn't suffer any ill effects from that ricin because it turns out it was incompetently made. Thank God for that. I mean, can you imagine? But, but cause by, by the, by the time that everybody realizes that was ricin, it's like six years later and Mrs. Ziegler can barely find that. any of it still in her house, which is a good thing because they would have been killed. very quickly if the ricin had been made properly. And of course, the recipe for ricin was found on Corey's computer in one of the search warrants, but that's just a coincidence. Of course it's a coincidence, because everybody looks for things like ricin, and it's normal. And when we come back, we're going to have a listen to a bit of a conversation that Josh had with Corey. You'll get an impression of just what this woman was like. You fully expect in the early part of this story that this strange group, in fact, the defense is going after this possibility, that this people involved in this strange group of, what would you call them? What's the name of them? Gregorians. You know, there was a series of novels made into a movie. How many people are in that lifestyle? I don't know. It appears to involve consenting adults, and it appears to involve master-slave relationships between men and women. It is, I'm not going to say a secret society, it's just sort of something that people don't talk about, except to other members of the group. It's a subculture. People might not understand. Well, I mean, normally, homicide investigations have a nasty habit of pulling back the covers on everybody's secrets, whether or not they are related to the crime itself, right? No secrets in a murder investigation. Right. You're having an affair. You're embezzling money. You, you know, you're a tax evader. Like, all this stuff is going to come out, because investigators don't know which is going to be the part that actually plays into this. Exactly. However, very quickly, it became clear to them that they sort of weren't getting any leads in that. Like, whatever, whatever was going on, it didn't really directly have anything to do with Talena's lifestyle, which she and her husband had practiced, and then he had died of a stroke a couple of years earlier. So, did it involve other people who were in that lifestyle? Possibly. I mean, they certainly looked at, at that guy, Marty, also known as Wolfie. Well, yeah. Corey points at him as the main suspect. Investigators clearly looked pretty hard at him. Here's why they thought that Marty Wolfie was not a good suspect. He was in terrible physical shape. You can see that in the interrogation video. He had a, he had a drug problem. He died of an overdose. It's doubtful, to investigators, anyway, and to others involved in this, that he would have had the physical strength to move Talena around in that freezer, that he would have been able to physically inflict the blows on her. But also, you know, when investigators are talking with witnesses or people who may be persons of interest, they're watching very carefully to see, what they say, how they say it, what they admit to, what they hold back. And in that part of, sort of, the investigation, Marty came across as truthful, even admitting some things he'd done that maybe were not completely legal, like breaking into Talena's house and taking a chainsaw, which he later ended up confessing to and bringing back. Marty came across to investigators as truthful and helpful. Corey came across to investigators as, shading the truth, changing her story, not telling the truth all the time, and also lying about little things, which always makes investigators sort of sit up a little more in the saddle. Did it surprise you that she was prepared to talk to them as much as she was, and that she was prepared to sit down for an interview with you? You know, when you talk with Corey, like when you see Corey in this story early on, talking about her friend Talena who was missing, like, her affect is not that of a guilty person who has been caught. She is exactly talking the way an innocent person would react if a friend of theirs were missing, which is sort of what made that interview work and why we put it sort of all the way through. You also got the impression, again, in the first hour particularly, that you'd be hearing more about the relationship between Talena and Corey, and that there was, you know, in the aftermath of their marriages, they got together as two women and there was some sort of romantic attachment, which might get stronger. So I want to play a little bit of your Q&A with her. When you asked her about that very question, I thought that was pretty interesting stuff. Here it is. Two of you were just friends and roommates. Just friends. There was no other kind of romantic relationship there. None ever whatsoever. In fact, when Talena's husband died, she really disavowed interest for a long time in anything romantic or sexual. And when I finished my relationship with my ex, I took vows of celibacy. I was really not interested in any future relationship either. It's been suggested that you wanted more out of that relationship than Talena did. Which is, which is, I guess it's not unusual or unfounded for these people to think that. Given Talena's lifestyle, Not true. No, not on any level. There are people out there in the community who knew that there was nothing between us other than a very strong platonic friendship. Right. I'm not asking whether there was anything between you. I wouldn't be afraid to admit if there was. But there was nothing sexual between us. And you were not interested in that? Not interested at all. You know, there were a couple of times a couple of different schools of thought about motive in this case. And that plays into one of them. There are people involved in this who think Corey wanted some kind of relationship and Talena didn't. I will say that we, beyond the sort of, you know, anecdotal musings of people who are Talena's friends, we have no reason to believe that that is true. We have no reason to doubt Corey's word on that particular topic. on that particular issue. Second, there are people who believe that this was about money because if she got Talena out of the way, she'd be able to use her credit cards and, you know, get to her bank account. And then there was all the stuff in the house that she could sell. And Corey was very accomplished at selling stuff online. And then there are, there is a school of thought, which includes the prosecutor in this case, that there was some kind of fight between the two of them. And Talena was going to kick Corey out of the house. And Corey didn't really have anywhere to go. And so she killed Talena sort of out of anger and to prevent herself from being put out on the street. I'm not pretending to know which one of those it was, but I will say that the Corey wanted more of a relationship than Talena did, appears to be the one with the sort of least foundation. But it's interesting that there would be so many possible motives, and yet they didn't really zero in on anything and say, that's it. That's why this happened. And it's such a terrible thing that happened. You've got to, you naturally want to feel as if there is some very strong motive behind it. Well, you do. And all of us, I suspect you as well, sort of tend to approach murder cases looking for a motive that we can sort of understand within our own ethical framework, right? Like, why would somebody do that? Like, because it doesn't make any sense to me that it was for this reason or that reason, right? So, you know, that's usually a mistake because, the only frame of reference that matters in a murder is the one of the murderer. It doesn't matter what you and I would do in that situation. It matters what they would do in that situation. You know, and some people, you know, had sort of, you know, lived lives without consequence. You know, if you've gotten away with a lot of things in the past, even if it's not murder, you might think, well, I can get away with this too. You know, the verdict in Wisconsin suggests that Corey, you know, believed that she had already gotten away with attempted murder. And so, you know, maybe there's nothing to fear. And it may very well be that she sort of thought, you know, these rural sheriff's investigators and this DA that actually, you know, represents multiple counties, they're not going to figure this out. Well, they did. That's a pretty common thought. The criminal who thinks that they're a little smarter than the people who are surrounding them. I'm smarter than anyone else, yes. Yeah. Well, you know, this case never made it to a courtroom. Corey, you know, Corey pled no contest. Yeah. Original first-degree murder charges was reduced to first-degree manslaughter. I think Corey's defense team did a pretty good job here. I don't think there's any question about that. I mean, her attorney, Rachel, that's the kind of person you would hire if you were in real trouble. No question about that. This is a circumstantial case. Now, as we've discussed before, circumstantial evidence can frequently be the strongest evidence there is, right? It leads you carefully down the road. down a nice road toward her. inevitable conclusion right so there was a circumstantial case but i thought a pretty good one cory pled no contest this is different from what you've heard many times uh here on dateline and elsewhere which is a something called an alfred play uh in which in an alfred play you acknowledge that the evidence will convict you uh but you don't admit that you did it yeah right but you do it without an admission of guilt and in this case you also don't admit guilt but you're not admitting that the evidence will convict you you're just saying we do not contest the charges in the end it doesn't make very much difference to her because she's gone to prison for you know effectively the rest of her life i mean even if you only serve a small portion of that she's not a spring chicken particularly no she's she's not a young woman right yeah well we are going to take a break and when we come back we will address some of your questions from social media for mr mankiewicz here well hello everybody and we're back and uh josh now is going to answer your questions uh about this episode um so let's do it um josh there are several questions there seems to be a popular uh episode i can't imagine why it actually was that john cavanaugh on facebook asks what's the accent on rachel to lena best friend she's from great britain sounds it she said she said that a lot of people in the in that part of oklahoma couldn't place her accent yeah s floyd on x says yeah i'm guessing if authorities were to dig deeper into cory's past they might find other instances similar to this one under pressure she doesn't act like a beginner well s if i may call you that um that is something that both talena's friends and law enforcement thought about because there is kind of a zero to 60 element of this like like if you believe in cory's guilt and i mean she she now has two separate verdicts uh then you got to believe that she sort of never committed any crimes before making an exotic homemade poison and trying to kill the zieglers and then you know beating talena to death as she as she slept although she has not been charged with anything else and i am unaware of her even being investigated for anything else so i mean at the moment this is all there is it is oddly as you say zero to 60 though you're right you know it's it does make people wonder is the correct answer to that the tip in 2020 six on x asks why isn't this person wearing prison garb in the interview with josh because although she was in custody at the time they usually have access to regular clothing because of court appearances so that wardrobe's usually there sometimes their attorneys supply them with clothing uh which i think might have happened in this case um let's go to cmo and x who asks did anyone check margie's system for ricin they did and the results were negative uh also they checked talena and the results were negative uh marty's death officially went down as a drug overdose and given his history and his his physical condition that is a hundred percent plausible gotcha patricia ann watkins on facebook asks i would like to know who the other person was and this is a very good question who the other person was seen dumping the freezer the former private detective said she saw two people in the truck this is a very interesting part of the story um janeline the private detective the ex-private detective um is an observant person and her story certainly rang true i thought law enforcement was not quite as persuaded as maybe you were patricia or or maybe the i was law enforcement thinks there was no second person uh that she just got it wrong and or that she heard somebody talking on a cell phone and mistook that for a conversation between two people who were at the scene there's also a theory this is not a law enforcement theory but there's also a theory put forth by some some people um uh talena's friends and other people who have sort of looked at the case that one of those uh people that she saw was cory and the other one was like some homeless person who maybe was hired for you know 50 bucks to help move this freezer but who did not know what it was they were moving or why or what was inside but the short answer to your question is law enforcement is not convinced that there was a second person and if there was a second person that person has never been located or identified and by the way cory argues that of course neither one of those people is her that that's marty and somebody else somebody that marty brought along to do it uh marty's description i think doesn't match with what janeline said and i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think that's a good point um saw but again you know i mean eyewitness accounts are not always 100 reliable well i believe you've answered all the questions josh i mean you could answer some more except i have none for you oh that's too bad i 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